Chris McCarthy – CEO – Hear and Say Centre

Noble man, Chris McCarthy – CEO of Hear and Say – talks: The non-for-profit space, awakening the senses, delivering on the greater good and living a blessed life.

Chris McCarthy is the CEO of Hear and Say, a non-for-profit organisation and one of the leading paediatric auditory-verbal and cochlear implant centres in the world. The centre was established 25 years ago and across six centres in Queensland offers services for children who are deaf or suffer some form of hearing loss. Chris has had an interesting career working over a number of different sectors, before joining Hear and Say as General Manager in 2007. He assumed the role of CEO in 2012. Chris previously held roles with Suncorp Metway and SMS Management and Technology.

Born in Rockhampton, Queensland, one of two sons, Chris spent most of his childhood living in regional Australia – his father’s work as a school principal meant his family relocated regularly. From Dalby to Goondiwindi, Mt Isa and Townsville to Ballandean, throughout his childhood Chris adapted and lived in many different places, an experience which profoundly shaped him. During his teenage years, his family finally settled in Brisbane where he finished his secondary education. Chris is a self-confessed “bush kid,” and says while he has spent most of his adult life in the city “his roots are in the bush”. Upon finishing school, he began a degree at university but after some time trying to “find his feet,” decided to leave university and ultimately joined the Australian army, graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1993. Chris attributes his leadership ability to many of the skills he acquired in the military. He says the leadership skills he learnt in the military were “second-to-none,” and that gave him scaffolding to build upon, teaching him the basic skills he needed to transition out of the military and into a civilian career space successfully.

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